By Aaron Kunkler
BOTHELL — The city displaced four businesses after acquiring and condemning a downtown building as part of its Main Street Extension project.
Three of the four businesses are moving outside of Bothell while a fourth is still determining where to move after the city used eminent domain to obtain the building at 18107 Bothell Way NE.
Mad Cow Yarn owner Molly Brusewitz said she would have liked to have stayed within the city.
“If I could have afforded it, but everything that we looked at, because of all the new construction, anything that is not new is pretty much taken,” she said.
Other affected businesses include Dawn’s Candy and Cake, Happy Lake 1 Teriyaki Wok and a Papa John’s franchise. All of the businesses leased space in the building.
Mad Cow Yarn will be moving to the Lake Forest Park Town Center. Dawn’s Candy and Cake owned by Dawn Motes plans to move to Lynnwood across from the Alderwood mall. The Papa John’s franchise is moving to Kirkland.
The owners of Happy Lake 1 Teriyaki Wok haven’t decided what they would do.
In an email, Bothell spokesperson Barbara Ramey said the property was acquired through eminent domain by the city in April. The site is also contaminated from a former dry cleaners business which occupied a part of the building.
Ramey said the businesses were given a year’s notice that the city was pursuing the property and that their leases have relocation clauses.
“We’ve all known this was coming for a very long time,” Brusewitz said. “…We knew it was going to happen but we had no idea when.”
Brusewitz said tenants were given official notices they needed to be out by June 30 a few months ago, but said she hadn’t had solid confirmation of the city’s timeline before then, which made the search for another location more difficult.
The property, once decontaminated, will be used to create a new city block between 98th Avenue NE and Bothell Way NE east to west as well as from Main Street to Highway 522 north to south as part of the city’s Main Street Extension project.
The new road will connect the Bothell Regional Library to the downtown core and remaining land will become part of a block of land to the south slated to be developed by a specialty grocer.
Dawn’s Candy and Cake owner Motes said they had looked for property in Bothell but couldn’t find any, so they opted to relocate to their hometown in Lynnwood across from the Alderwood Mall.
“With all the improvements, I think it priced us out and Lynnwood bent over backwards to help us out,” she said.
Dawn’s Candy and Cake is a candy and cake decoration and supply store which holds decoration classes and community events. Motes said they moved to Bothell around five years ago after previously working out of locations in Kirkland and Lynnwood.
Both Motes and Brusewitz are optimistic that their customers will follow them to their new locations.
“I would have liked to stay in Bothell, my customer base is here,” Brusewitz said. “However, I have a wonderfully loyal customer base and they’re all planning on visiting us there as well.”
Both also expressed gratitude for the local community who supported them.
For Motes, being located near Highway 405 of I-5 is important, and thinks Lynnwood will be a good new location for their business.
“We really have enjoyed the community here a lot,” she said. “If they weren’t tearing the building down, we definitely wouldn’t be going.”
Aaron Kunkler: 425-318-7651; akunkler@bothell-reporter.com.
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